347 Augusta

Personally, I have been listening to the music of Mclusky for quite a while. Since them fetus days. Remember when Sony made those tiny little MP3 players that had the blue alien as a mascot? Yeah, since then. Most of the people in my life that believe in good music also dug Mclusky equally as hard so you can imagine how excited we were when we heard that Andrew Falkous and Jack William Egglestone were in a new band called Future Of The Left with Kelson Mathias on bass.

We had a group orgy out of excitement, then we heard the record. It has not one dull moment and will probably be the best thing you hear all year (unless you heard it in 2007).

Andy Falkous was kind enough to answer some questions that we were pondering. What follows should be a spiritual revolution for all of us.

It seems that, as a listener, as records and time progress, the lyrics and instrumentation becomes more and more sinister. Is this something that is intentional or does it just happen?

There’s no real plan, only the natural desire as the years roll by to invest the music with a little more substance and trickery than was at first satisfactory. Times change, standard tunings become bored and boring and the way chords fit together feels too easy.

Lyrically, there are always new people to hex.

One of the things we have always admired about the content of your music is the rampant use of people’s first and last names as a focal point of your lyrics—from Danny Baker to Mark Foley. Are these real people? If not, where do these names come from? If they are real, how have the subjects in question reacted to their sudden popularity?

I believe in the maxim “write about what you know,” and in my case, what I know and do and specialise in, is/are petty (largely) insubstantial insults and cascades of language with occasional uses of proper nouns (ie – names) in order to ground the imagery. It’s useful and, to slip into jargon for a second, fun.

Oh yes, and they’re always real people. Danny Baker is a former NME editor (from the 70’s) and is now a big fat waste of space talk-show DJ/’comedy’ pundit who specialises in smug cod-affrontery. Mark Foley is the guy who co-runs our rehearsal studios—a swell all round Scouse guy with a huge beard and the heart of a lion.

On the new album, Curses, it seems like the bass follows the vocal melodies more than anything else, like on Manchasm. Do you write the guitar and bass lines or does Kelson Mathias write them to match your melodies?

The songs usually just happen upon us in rehearsal. I suppose I wrote about half the bass lines on Curses but that’s mainly because Kelson was finding his feet on the instrument at the time. Everything is a slave to the vocals, however. The greatest guitar part in the world is of no use to me if it sabotages the melody.

Lets just say that I am a genie. I just gave you three wishes and you can have anything that your heart pines for with two of the wishes but the third wish is to have your choice of any popular musician to drag into a crowded street, shove a shotgun in his mouth like a big black cock of death and blow his brains out in front of hundreds of on-lookers without any chance of criminal charges. Who would be your lucky contestant?

Y’know, I get asked this question a lot and I can never really motivate myself to answer. Really, if you can ignore the fact that, say, the guy from Razorlight made more money today than we’ll make in our lifetimes then you’d have to admit that the world would be a lot duller without his ridiculous ego-smothered, non-rocking, pomp pop dick-slinging. Without these people to laugh at and contrast with our eternal souls, life would be but a shadow of itself.

Once I found myself preforming a show in Cardiff. I unknowingly asked the sound guy if he had ever heard of your previous band and he reacted as if I had just asked him if he knew what the sun was. Are people still as receptive and excited about The Future Of The Left as I am sure this man is, or is it like starting over?

The history of both Mclusky and Jarcrew meant we had a free pass to rung three of the obscurity ladder but, to be perfectly honest, I’m not aware of a significant amount of excitement about us.

On a personal note, “We take more drugs than a touring funk band.”? Bill Hicks?

Yes, although it’s a paraphrase rather than an exact quotation. A bit of Bill can get you through the darkest hours, although I must admit to finding his smoking and drug bits a little dumb.

Any plans to visit The United States and Atlanta, Georgia in particular?

We’re always with the hopes, plans and fervent dreams but reality has a way of scuppering such fancy. Hopefully we’ll be in the States sometime after March but I can’t say I’ll be hurrying back to Atlanta—I found the show there particularly unpleasant. Perhaps it was me, because at the time I was more concerned with getting through the day without murdering a former bandmate.

Lastly, we had some trouble getting a copy of your record around these parts, so we downloaded it. How do you feel about this and where can we buy a copy?

Well, it isn’t officially released in the US yet so that’s normal, I guess. I’ll tell you how I feel about people downloading my songs in ten years when I’m drowning on my own tears in a Camden bedsit, covered in sores from a diet of cheap lager and a lack of essential vitamins.